You might have heard these words before and thought they were just some big words for those who really study and teach speech. Well, I’m here to tell you that’s not true. If you are an elementary teacher I can guarantee you teach these in your classroom. You just might not know it, but I think it is about time we, as teachers, did so we know what we are really teaching and why it matters.
What are Phonemes?
Phonemes are the smallest unit of sound in our language. We have 44 phonemes in our language. Although there are some that say we have closer to 52.
Why They Matter?
Phonemes are the building blocks for our language. Our printed language would be meaningless without phonemes since our language is one that is written to represent the sounds. They are how words differ which allows for there to be different meaning. Choose and chew differ by one phoneme but their meanings are vastly different.
Look at this quote from Speech to Print: “proficient reading and spelling are strongly associated with the ability to identify, remember, separate, combine and manipulate phonemes and to do so rapidly and without effort.” (Moats, 2020 p. 26) We want all our students to be successful so teaching phonemes is SO important.
How to Teach Them?
Teaching them explicitly is the best way. That means in a direct and structured way so students know the goal, what it looks like to succeed and get feedback along the way. In teaching the phonemes, it also helps students learn how they make those sounds by what is happening in their mouths. This is why sound walls are such a big deal right now because they help to do this.
Once students know the phonemes they should, then instruction starts to focus on how to manipulate and change sounds. This would be phonemic awareness.
What are Graphemes?
Graphemes are the letter or letters that represent a phoneme. Graphemes can be a single letter. They can also be as many as 4 letters together. It is here where I believe our language gets the misconception that it is too hard, too tricky and too cool for rules. It is simply not true. Graphemes just prove there are such things as a bad math problem because our 44 phonemes = 250+ graphemes
Why They Matter?
Graphemes are how we take the sounds (phonemes) and put them into print. Without graphemes, we would not have a written language. They are the final piece in the speech to print connection.
How To Teach Them?
The best is to teach them explicitly. In doing so, not only do we need to teach what graphemes represent what phonemes, but we also need to teach when those graphemes are used.
For example, we need to teach the /k/ phoneme we would teach it can be spelled with k, c or ck. It is the teaching of where we hear the /k/ phoneme and what sound is before it or after it that determines which grapheme is used.
CK is used at the end of a word after a short vowel.
K is used after e and i
C is used after a, o and u.
Explicitly teaching phoneme-grapheme relationships and where in words certain graphemes are used can make all the difference.
What are Morphemes?
Morphemes are the smallest unit of meaning in our language. Not all morphemes look alike. They can be whole words, parts of words (like prefixes and suffixes) and even a single letter. For example:
draw is a morpheme,
if we add re to it we get redraw which ends up being two morphemes
If we add s to draw we get draws which also has two morphemes but has a different meaning
Why They Matter?
Knowing and recognizing morphemes will not only help us encode and decode words, but they help us understand the meaning of words therefore expand our vocabulary.
Because morphemes hold meaning they also help us with reading comprehension, learning new words and spelling.
How to Teach Them?
Once again with explicit instruction and early in school. From the book Speech to Print “Recent research indicates that morphological awareness is associated with reading and spelling growth from first grade onward,..” (Moats, 2020 p.134)
That means from first grade and into the upper grades, morphemes should be worked into your scope and sequence. It should start with base words and build to common prefixes and suffixes to the less common ones starting in first grade.
Don’t you teach all of these in your classroom already? We just didn’t have the language to know this is how they are all connected.
Why Does This Matter?
Even though phonemes, graphemes and morphemes are connected, what they all have the same is they are also best taught explicitly. We need to be intentional about how we teach each of these in our classrooms by having clear lesson goals, letting our students know what those goals are and giving feedback- lots and lots of feedback along the way. To help get you started I have a phoneme and grapheme chart to keep track of them.
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